Richard Severe is 6 feet tall and although he has never been in a fight, as a black man, he has a body image, he told a crowd of more than 150 people Monday night.

"How do I know my body is not going to be perceived as violent in Valparaiso?" said Severe, who moved from New Jersey to Valparaiso three months ago to take a faculty position teaching medieval literature and professional writing at Valparaiso University.

"You don't. That's the truth," said VU School of Law Dean Andrea Lyon, one of the panelists in a town hall meeting on race, justice, community and policing at the Valparaiso University Center for the Arts, adding that white man of the same size likely would not face the same perception.

"I don't like telling you that," Lyon said.

Kyle Telechan / Post-Tribune

Valparaiso University student Connor Sullivan asks a question to a panel of officials and experts on Monday during a forum about race at the Valparaiso University Center for the Arts.

Valparaiso University student Connor Sullivan asks a question to a panel of officials and experts on Monday during a forum about race at the Valparaiso University Center for the Arts. (Kyle Telechan / Post-Tribune)

Severe was one of several people to address the panel during the meeting, one in a series sponsored by the recently formed Northwest Indiana Coalition for Civil Discourse. A similar meeting was held in Gary in August, and a future event is planned for LaPorte County.

The goal of the meetings, said Vanessa Allen, president and chief executive officer of the Urban League of Northwest Indiana, was to open a dialogue on conversations that are sometimes difficult to have.

"We live in challenging times," she said.

In addition to Lyon, the panel included Porter County Sheriff David Reynolds; community activist Christina Hearne; Ivan Bodensteiner, professor emeritus at the VU law school; Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas; and David Ashley, pastor at Redeemed Fellowship Church in Michigan City.

Garrard McClendon of Lakeshore Public Television served as moderator, and a portion of the event was recorded for his program "CounterPoint."

In late March, McClendon said sheriff's deputies arrested the Chicago-based rap star Twista, also known as Carl Terrell Mitchell, on a misdemeanor drug charge after pulling over his Rolls Royce in South Haven.

"The Porter County sheriff and the Porter County police department treated him with the utmost respect," McClendon said to applause, "because things could have gone really bad on that day."

Reynolds, who said substance abuse is a bigger issue for police in the county than race, said he couldn't comment on racially charged interactions involving police in other communities but he could talk about his own department.

"Every time we have a use of force incident in the department, we investigate it," he said.

This year, his department has been involved in 12 uses of force, all involving stun guns and white suspects. Last year, there were 16 incidents, and that included one black suspect as well as four women.

"When we have them, we thoroughly investigate them and maybe in other communities they aren't investigating them," Reynolds said. "In Porter County, it's all about building trust."

Valparaiso has hired an outside source to look at its statistics in an effort to hold the city accountable, Costas said. Noting the city's population shift over the past 15 years to represent greater diversity, he said the city created a human rights council seven years ago as well.

"It all begins with conversation," he said.

Kyle Telechan / Post-Tribune

Valparaiso University Law Professor Ivan Bodensteiner speaks on Monday during a forum covering race relations.

Lyon, whose background is as a criminal defense attorney in Chicago, said in her experience, there is a strong racial prejudice that everyone has as a result of the media and how they are brought up.

"Unfortunately it plays out in startling ways," she said, adding she had a conversation with her black son and daughter about, "when you get pulled over, how not to get killed. Not 'if,' but when."

The perception is always going to be there, Ashley said, adding that breaking that perception requires more conversations like the one at the town hall meeting.

Many times, Bodensteiner said, the police and those they police live in different places and attend different schools.

"I expect in those situations there's a lot of fear, maybe on both sides," he said, adding integrated police departments could help. "The only way to integrate a police force is to take intentional steps to integrate."